Rydberg Atoms in a Magnetic Guide

Abstract

We investigate electronically excited atoms in a magnetic guide. It turns out that the Hamiltonian describing this system possesses a wealth of both unitary as well as antiunitary symmetries that constitute an uncommon extensive symmetry group. One consequence is the two-fold degeneracy of any energy level. The spectral properties are investigated for a wide range of field gradients and the spatial distributions of the spin polarization are analyzed. Wave lengths, oscillator strengths and selection rules are provided for the corresponding electromagnetic transitions. The effects due to an additional homogeneous bias field constituting a Ioffe-Pritchard trap are explored equally.